accede to Mr. Rockefeller's wishes, he perceived that the
situation was ideal for his purposes.

"Let me glance over that subscription list," I said; and I opened up the
book, for book it really was.

My readers may surmise how intense was my interest in scanning the
results of my work. This great stack of bank sheets before me was the
official list of the subscription, stitched together in seventeen
sections of twenty pages each; twenty-eight names, with city, State,
street number addresses, and amounts subscribed to a page, all in ink in
longhand.

"Better take them with you to the hotel and go carefully over the names
and amounts," put in Mr. Rogers. "It certainly is a long job, but one
that you must tackle some time, and the sooner the better."

Here was the missing link in my chain of evidence, delivered directly
into my hands without a word of persuasion or cajolery. Providence
played that hand for me surely. I concealed my jubilance by rattling
along vociferously:

"I shall have to work over this a heap, sending out circulars and what
not. It would have been better to have had it in typewriting, but I
suppose Stillman didn't dare intrust it to the machine people. However,
I can divide up the seventeen sections among different people and none
will know the whole story. I will keep it in Boston with the other
papers, and--gracious! what's this?"

"What is it?" he asked, smiling at my excitement.

In front of me was the section beginning with the "Mc's," and the
largest subscription on the page was 6,000 shares--1,200 allotment. I
followed the line back to the name. It was that of Hugh McLaughlin, then
the big "boss" of Brooklyn, who, like all the other big bosses of New
York State, was a trusted lieutenant of "Standard Oil." I put my finger
on the amount and said:

"You have taken care of your friend across the river, I see. No wonder
all the politicians were so anxious to get in, for they know you would
not put this old gentleman into anything that is not pretty sure."

Mr. Rogers nodded wisely:

"Yes, I told the old stalwart he had better have about half a million,
but he went $100,000 better, I see. I sent the word around to the
others, too, but have not had a chance to go over the list carefully.
Have they all gone in under their own names?"

I ran over page after page, looking for names as he called them off, but
most of them had disguised their ventures through dummies. We had no
trouble in put